Where Did Annie Hall Order Pastrami On White Bread With Mayo?

This post was originally about trying to locate where Alvy Singer first kissed Annie in Annie Hall…and of course, Scouting NY readers figured it out within hours! Specifically, Richard B correctly identified it as Greenwich Ave between 10th & Christopher.

Two big questions remain: where was the nightclub that Annie sang at, and where was the deli they went to after?

My gut says that the locations in this series of scenes make sense – that Annie performed somewhere in the Village, that they went to a nearby deli, and that Greenwich Ave was the best route to take. Anyone recognize either? If it helps, they walk east on Greenwich.

Finally, I’m having trouble identifying this bookstore. I’m guessing this was one of those pre-Barnes & Noble classic NY big bookstores….but I wasn’t around back then. Some have said the Coliseum, but the problem seems to be the ceilings.

Well, regardless of which deli it actually is, all of a sudden I have this huge craving for a couple of kosher dogs with mustard and kraut, a potato knish, and a cold Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray or Black Cherry!

The kiss takes place on Greenwich Avenue, south side, between 10th Street and Christopher. I used to walk past Tiberius all the time in the Seventies. I just Googled it and confirmed that Tiberius Fashions was located at 19 Greenwich Avenue.

I always assumed that the bookstore was Coliseum Books at 57th and Broadway, as JessZ says. In the very last frames of that scene, as they walk to the register, you catch just a glimpse of the view out the front window and it seems pretty much right.

I can’t identify the deli offhand, but if I rewatch that segment it may jog my memory. I can confirm it isn’t the Second Avenue Deli. My guess is that it’s someplace that would have been on or near Sixth Avenue (which they’re walking towards before the kiss on Greenwich Ave) and somewhere before Bleecker. I knew the delis on Bleecker pretty well back then, and this doesn’t jump out to me as any of them, but I could be wrong.

I’m writing a blog in which I cover every #1 movie from 1970 to the present day. It’s called Box Office Boffo. Click on the link above to have a look at it. I’ve gotten up to late 1972. In any case, I noticed an odd thing about the 1970 movies — two movies from the year 1970 have a sequence filmed in Doubleday Books: The Boys in the Band and The Owl and the Pussycat. Does anyone know where this is/was? Is it still there? I think it might have been perceived to be a big deal at the time, much like Coliseum.

The Doubleday was the flagship store, at 724 Fifth Avenue (56-57). It was a pretty big deal due to location, selection, and many signed copies of recent releases. (I’m pretty sure that’s the one in “The Owl and the Pussycat”; not sure about “Boys”. There was also a Doubleday store at Fifth and about 53rd.)

By the way, there are plenty of illogical routes in Woody Allen movies. Like in “Hannah and her Sister” I recall they are in Soho and go “around the corner” and are suddenly at a book store near Astor Place. That said, I always wondered if the nightclub MIGHT be The Cookery. The bookstore does look like a chain, like a Brentano’s, or as mentioned above, a Doubleday.

Is the diner the Waverly on Waverly and 6th? Or that old diner on broadway right at astor on the the west side of broadway (is that even still there?).
Maybe im just throwing out the old diners down there i know of? Also isnt the fact that “they walk east on Greenwich” irrelevant in the movie world?

I can’t find a good picture online, but that’s definitely the old Coliseum Books. They moved to a spot near Bryant Park in like 2003, so pics of that space are way different, but the old location at 57th & Broadway definitely had that horrific fluorescent lighting and drop ceiling and tacky floors. When Annie Hall was written/filmed in 1976, Coliseum was a new/hip/popular spot as it had only been open 2 years and so it totally makes sense in the story that they would go there.

Chances are good that I’m wrong, but my gut has always told me that the nightclub/cabaret spot was Arturo’s on West Houston. A friend of mine used to do singing gigs there — it had open mic chanteuse vibe to it back in the day.

The deli looks to me a lot like the Waverly Restaurant (which recently underwent a makeover). I always assumed the kiss was on an avenue uptown so I never made that connection before. I’ve been waiting for years for Woody Allen to get the Scouting NY treatment!

The freestanding racks on both the main floor and the basement were extremely different from these, and there is far more room in the aisles between support columns seen in that shot than there ever was at CB. Drop ceiling similar, but there were plenty of those in the 1960s – 1970s. Coliseum’s lighting was far less subdued than what you see here in this photo. The store’s floors were also much worse in appearance than these, both upstairs and down.

Pretty sure it’s the main Doubleday on 5th between 56-57 (Prada, now, I think).

I worked at the Scribner Book Store 1977 and 1979-83 and can safely state, having been in all the following stores at one time or the other, it’s not Scribner’s, Brentano’s, Laurel, Classic at 6th & 48th, Rizzoli’s former store where Bendel now is, Marboro Books on 57 just west of 6th in the old Automat, or the smaller Doubleday at 5th & 53rd. Neither the Barnes & Noble that used to be at 5th and 48th or the B.Dalton that was at 5th & 52nd were open when Annie H was filmed (former in the spring of 1977, B.Dalton that same summer.) Nor is it 8th Street Books, nor any of the Upper East Side stores that used to be on Madison, nor either of the Barnes & Nobles at 5th & 18th — either the college store still there or the old new/used that was across the street at the SW corner.

Certainly, as several have pointed out, not the Strand. Allen did do a scene in Hannah & Her Sisters at the old Pageant Bookstore on E. 7th east of 4th, about as different from this space as can be imagined. Can’t recall if he ever shot anything at Gotham Book Mart, but if he did, this isn’t it either.

There was a B.Dalton’s on the corner of 8th street and 6th Ave.
Lots of films done on that street. There’s also a record shop up 8th street that was in “Cactus Flower” with Walter Matthau and Goldie Hawn.
But that certainly looks like it could be the old B&N on 18th & 5th.

Had forgotten both of those downtowners — but it’s definitely not the B.Dalton at 8th & 6th; had forgotten the University Place Brentano’s but that one as I recall had far more natural light (it closed around the same time as the one in midtown, c.1979-80). Nor, is it the Marboro that was on 8th St.

Also definitely not Bloomsbury (which preceded Shakespeare, at Broadway & 81) or any of the three stores by Columbia (Salter, Bookforum, Papyrus). No new bookstores downtown at that time unless you count Ruby’s, on Chambers.

Used to be as many bookstores as there were record stores, am remembering. Painfully.

The big Doubleday’s had a *lot* of space, and at least a mezzanine level — can remember the stairs leading up to it. The 53rd & 5th branch closed several years before that one.